Malty ragi sevai simmered briefly in milk and folded with strained jaggery syrup, ghee-fried cashews and raisins, and a scrape of nutmeg.
Ingredients
From the TrooFoodz pantry
- Sprouted Ragi Vermicelli 100 g
Fresh
- Full-fat milk 750 ml
- Jaggery, grated 150 g
- Ghee 2 tbsp
- Cashews 12
- Raisins 2 tbsp
- Cardamom powder ½ tsp
- Nutmeg, freshly grated a scrape
Method
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Fry the nuts
Fry the cashews in the ghee until gold, add the raisins for a few seconds until they swell, then lift both out and keep the ghee in the pan.
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Roast the sevai
Break Sprouted Ragi Vermicelli into short pieces and roast in that ghee for two minutes until it smells toasted and the strands look glossy.
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Simmer briefly
Pour in the milk and simmer five minutes only. Ragi sevai softens in about two minutes, so a longer cook turns the payasam into porridge.
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Make the syrup
Melt the jaggery in a quarter cup of water in a separate pan, strain out the grit, and leave the syrup to cool to lukewarm.
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Combine off the flame
Take the milk pan off the heat, wait a full minute, then pour the syrup in a thin stream while stirring. Hot milk meeting hot jaggery curdles almost instantly.
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Spice and rest
Stir in the cardamom and nutmeg and leave the payasam ten minutes. It thickens as the ragi starch keeps swelling off the heat.
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Garnish and serve
Top with the fried cashews and raisins. Loosen with warm milk if it has set too thick.
Why this works
Ragi vermicelli is already cooked and extruded, so it needs warmth rather than cooking — over-simmering breaks the strands and clouds the milk. Cooling the strained syrup before it meets the milk keeps both below the temperature at which jaggery's acids flocculate casein, which is what a split payasam actually is.
Make it your own
- Full-fat milk → Coconut milk Vegan and sweeter; keep it well below a boil.
- Jaggery → Coconut sugar Milder and less mineral; no straining needed.
- Ghee → Coconut oil Changes the aroma entirely, in a good Kerala direction.
